Citizens of Pune criticise govt decision on illegal buildings

Citizens also objected to the cut-off date of December 31, 2015 for regularization, and insisted that it must not be after February 27, 2013 considering the Supreme Court’s order regarding illegal constructions.TNN | August 26, 2017, 17:00 IST

PUNE: A group of citizens have objected to the state government’s notification proposing regularization of illegal constructions without penalizing developers and officials.

They have sent a letter of objection to the principal secretary of the state urban development department. “We strongly object to the fact that there is no provision to penalize individuals and companies, who indulge in unauthorized and illegal activity of constructing and selling such unauthorized flats to unsuspecting purchasers. The penalty for regularizing illegal construction above 500sqm or more than 8 flats/units should be recovered from individuals or companies who indulged in unauthorized and illegal activity,” states the letter signed by DVR Rao, Satish Khot, Gautam Idnani and Arvind Kaushal.

They also objected to the cut-off date of December 31, 2015 for regularization, and insisted that it must not be after February 27, 2013 considering the Supreme Court’s order regarding illegal constructions.

“Another point that we would like to draw the state’s attention to is that many large commercial buildings, malls, theatres, mangal karyalayas have violated fire safety and control rules. The government needs to carry out a detailed survey and withhold sanctions of buildings found violating these rules,” Khot said.

Only after such buildings make structural changes and are equipped with correct equipment as per rules, should they be regularized,” he added.

“Almost all auditoria/enclosed public structures in the state cannot be evacuated in three minutes (180 seconds) as per the international standard requirement in case of any emergency,” the letter states.

In April, both Houses of the state legislature had amended the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act to enable regularization of unauthorized constructions carried out on or before December 31, 2015.